I'm just gonna come right out with it. The unhealthy lifestyle in this town makes me sick. Memphis (and the rest of the South), you're gross. You cannot drive or even walk (what is that? You have to use your feet? Naw...) a half a mile without being smothered by fried chicken, fried pickles, fried fish, even fried butter (thanks Paula Deen) for heaven's sake.... Add some, you guessed it, super-sized french FRIES with that, maybe some ribs and smother it all in ranch dressing and you got yourself an everyday Memphis heart clog. Don't forget the 18 extra regular sodas that contain about a half a cup of sugar each, and now we're talking. (By the way, that super-sized Dr. Pepper that you're holding weighs in at about 500-600 calories, other people would call that dinner).
Trust me, I'm not excluding myself. Since I've been unfortunate enough to live in the South, I've gained probably the better part of 30-40 pounds, not to blame only on the South, of course, it is after all up to me what I feed my body. But do your surroundings influence you? I think yes.
Having grown up in Germany, lived for half a decade in Florida and for several years in Boston, Mass., I've always led an active lifestyle, used to go to the gym 5 times a week or walk or roller blade, ate vegetables or fruit with every meal, I've always been more or less healthy. You didn't find a kernel of white rice or an "elbow" of white pasta in my house. No white bread, no processed sugar stuff, none of it. Since I live here I've worked 12 hours or more a day and have not only adopted, but always blamed the unhealthy habits on, "oh, I've got so little time to cook". Bullshit. It takes the same time to cook an unhealthy meal as it does a healthy meal. Yesterday night it occurred to me that nothing has to be smothered in cheese or fried in oil, just, because you don't have time. That's a sad cop-out. Not justifiable by anything really, and that's why the buck stops here. Because it makes me sick. And because its unhealthy. I will not be corrupted by a society that has so little self-respect, that it has become fat and lazy and then in turn applies the same attitude to everything surrounding them.
Consider the chart that I put below. Now you tell me why Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana are the fattest states in the country? If you can live covered in crime and trash, might as well do it weighing 200+lb. Life has gone to down the drain already, so why not continue on that path... Just saying, if you've got nothing good surrounding you, why would you take a step to change for the better? For what?
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Now look, I get it, we all need comfort food sometimes. The operative word being S-O-M-E-T-I-M-E-S. That is not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the morbidly OBESE 10-year-olds, shoving some more pizza and fried chicken into their faces and the parents standing by and watching, sometimes even encouraging. And when you throw them a dirty look you might get an unprompted justification such as "that's all he'll eat" or "he doesn't like vegetables" (lady, you don't have to justify anything to me, justify it to your child when he/she is old enough to blame you for the difficulties they now encounter later in life, because of your "lovin'" you think you gave them when they were a kid).
Oh, and, yes, you moron, that's all he'll eat, because he is bombarded by ads about fried stuff and fast food 24/7, which it is your job to divert him to healthier options, believe it or not, they're out there, all you gotta do is care (refer to my last post "distraction nation" for the vicious media cycle). Also, because you, Missy, haven't cooked a whole meal in a decade, he/she doesn't even know what home-cooked food is (No, no, wrong again step away from the KFC bucket that you just brought home. Newsflash: just because you just took the fast-food home, doesn't make it any better for you).
But then, we live in a world, where food has become an instant gratification. Bad day? Comfort food. We as adults do it and we teach the kids that it's OK. Birthday? Let's get Pizza. Good grades? Pizza. Food has become the go-to reward for everything. Many in today's society have become too lazy to go bowling or go and pick out a good book as a reward for a child. Let's go eat, that way I can get away from my chores, so that way the reward goes further. Truth is, mostly, parents are rewarding themselves, not the kids.
Home-cooked is the thing where you put the pan on the oven and make water boil and stuff. That square box in your kitchen with the four round thingies on top, that's your oven, it's just been sitting there since it was delivered to you two years ago along with your brand new state of the art "show" kitchen that you're not using. That's a whole other story.
It always fascinates me, how people have kids like they're going out of style, apparently just for the sake of saying "kids, yeah, I got some of those" but yet, they don't give a crap about them, or even at the very least even take a little pride in them... you're the one that brought them here in the first place. Most, as a matter of fact, only have kids to validate their own existence, passing on the gene-pool, for the benefit of the parents so as to tell themselves they've accomplished something in their lives.
So much to rant about so little time....
